Johannesburg, March 2025 – A non-profit food rescue organisation has launched a smart, tech-enabled beneficiary vetting app. SA Harvest, in partnership with mobile app-driven education creators, Garnish Global, created the system to ensure that food reaches legitimate, active community-based organisations (CBOs), and simultaneously collects rich data that fuels broader social impact.
The SA Harvest-piloted initiative leverages technology to deliver food, deepen relationships, gather insights and spotlight emerging leaders in South Africa's hunger relief ecosystem. SA Harvest COO Ozzy Nel explains: “Food is our starting point – our currency – but our real work is about enabling systematic change. This vetting system gives us visibility into the lives we hope to affect, revealing the challenges and strengths of our CBO partners. We’re building trust, collecting data and becoming a conduit for others to invest meaningfully in community development.”
Why a vetting system, and why now?
With over 300 beneficiary organisations in Johannesburg, Durban and Cape Town, SA Harvest aims to address the perceived fragmentation of South Africa’s informal food economy, where many feeding schemes operate without official documentation, registration or safety oversight. The new vetting system introduces structure without exclusion, allowing CBOs to remain accessible while ensuring traceability, transparency and impact.
Tech-powered trust: how the system works
The vetting system includes:
- Real-time beneficiary tracking to confirm legitimacy and activity
- Digital receipts and geo-tagging to verify food deliveries
- Automated fraud detection to flag inconsistencies
- Low-data usability to accommodate CBOs with limited internet access
Visit SAHarvest.org to find out more.
